Finding Personal Strengths
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today we’re going to be talking all about personal strengths, so without further ado, let’s hop right in.
Welcome to the podcast; I’m your host and executive coach, Adam Melnyk. With over a decade of experience in mental health, leadership, and coaching, I aim to help you understand leadership through a mental-health lens. So, let’s sit back, relax, and have a chat.
Earlier this year I was on stage presenting a very important topic. This topic was “What do I want to do with the rest of my life?” See, the audience that was attending this topic were individuals from high school. They were just finishing up their Grade 12, and they were thinking about: what do they want to do with the rest of their life—what career options do they want to fulfill?
Do You Have Personal Strengths?
In this lecture we spoke a lot about values and how to find them. We talked about action steps, but there was one specific slide that really caught their attention, and that was personal strength. It was when I got to this slide that people started asking some very interesting questions, and one of the questions that was asked was, “What do I do if I don’t have any personal strengths?”
I remember scratching my head and being quite confused by this question and stated, quite bluntly, You do have strengths. I know you do. I have yet to work with somebody—or meet somebody—that doesn’t have some personal strengths, some quality about them that they are amazing at. The more I thought about this question, the more I realize that the average individual honestly believes that they don’t have any strengths—they don’t have anything that they’re good at. I asked myself, Why is that? Why do people think that they have no strengths?
I mean, this is not the first time that I’ve encountered this question or this problem. In fact, a couple of my clients that I’m currently working with are going through this exact same issue. They say to me, Adam, I don’t have any personal strengths, so I can’t succeed, and I know that’s just a blatant lie.
It’s Hard to Understand Our Own Strengths
See, the reason why individuals feel that they don’t have any strengths is because strengths are invisible—you can’t see them. When you’re strong at something, it is effortless for you. You think of it like breathing; it’s something that you just do, and it comes so naturally. For myself, I was told I’m a great listener, which makes me a great coach. But because I’m such a great listener, and it’s a skill I use every single day, I take it for granted. I don’t think of it as one of my strengths; I think of it as a skill that everybody has. But the truth is, not everybody has this skill.
How do I know this? Because I’ve met many a leader that is a terrible listener. They’re fabulous talkers, but they’re awful listeners. I’ve been to many a board meeting where the individuals around the table are terrible listeners—it’s more of a competition of who can get the last word in than actually being productive and fixing or solving the problem.
I’ll be honest with you, dear listener: even though people have told me that I’m an amazing listener, oftentimes I take it for granted. I forget that I’m actually quite good at listening because, again, it comes to me effortlessly—almost as if I’m breathing—just like your strengths come to you effortlessly. They’re the things that seem so mundane to you, so blasé, that you overlook them.
This is a problem because it can create a false belief in your head that, Hey, I don’t have any strengths. When people point out your strengths, you kind of brush it off as if everybody has those strengths: “Hey, you’re amazing at judging risk.” “Yeah, but everybody’s good at that.”
Don’t Believe That Everyone Is Good At Something – Except You
When you start thinking this way—when you start thinking that everyone’s good at something except for you—this is going to lead to some very dangerous consequences, particularly if you’re at work or maybe you’re in class and you’re getting a lot of negative feedback. It’s going to create this false belief that you’re broken, that there’s something wrong with you, that you’re weak, that you’re a victim—and that’s not what we want.
That type of mindset is extremely destructive, because you end up creating this self-fulfilling prophecy where you believe that you’re a victim; you believe yourself to be weak; you believe that you can’t stand up on your own two feet. As a result, you subconsciously suppress your strengths and ignore them—even if someone were to point them out to you—and you start highlighting your weaknesses, ensuring that you won’t succeed.
This is incredibly dangerous, because by doing that you end up destroying your confidence, you end up destroying your independence—because again, you’re weak, you can’t stand up on your own, you are dependent upon somebody else. This mindset also destroys your goals and your dreams—dreams because it doesn’t matter if you want more out of your life; you’ll never be able to obtain it, because you don’t have any tools in your tool belt to get there.
Imagine wanting to build a house and you don’t have a hammer, you don’t have a saw, you don’t have a measuring tape. That’s really what you’re doing when you think of yourself as being weak: you intentionally take all your tools and you throw them in the garbage, and you say, Well, I can’t build a house because I don’t have what I need, when in reality you have exactly what you need—you just threw it in the garbage. No wonder, when you think of yourself as weak, as broken, as somebody who has no strengths—no skills—it’s no wonder you can’t succeed.
This is a big problem if you want to be a leader. If you want to get out there and rally people under your cause, you have to fundamentally believe in yourself and be able to recognize your strengths. That leads into the first point; the first thing you have to do is you gotta start believing in yourself.
I get it—it’s hard to believe in yourself. But if you want to succeed, if you want to move up the social ladder, if you want to accomplish your dreams, you have to believe in yourself. You have to sit there and think to yourself, I can do this. I am skilled. I am talented. I deserve this. You will not accomplish your dreams if you do not believe in yourself.
Learn How To Believe In Yourself
And I know what you’re thinking: Adam, that’s easier said than done. I get it. I’ll level with you: for a very long time I didn’t believe in myself. I truly saw myself as someone who was fat and lazy, someone that had no friends and no motivation, and someone who didn’t have anything going for them. It was no wonder I couldn’t succeed at any of my dreams or goals—I was the carpenter trying to build a house without any tools. No wonder it took me so long to get out of that slump and start doing things with my life.
That was a false belief I had to break. And how I broke it is I got out there and I made friends, and I proved to myself that, no, these were lies—these were just stories I was telling myself, because I could do this. I could get out there, I could lose the weight, I could make friends, I could make something of myself. And, dear listener, I did. I did get out there and I did make something of myself. Here’s the rub: I know you can too. You are an amazing individual who has a ton of things going for them; we just need to recognize that, and the first step is believing in yourself.
A Coach Can Help You Identify Your Strengths
The second step is we need to understand your strengths. What are you actually good at? Maybe you’re a very analytical individual—awesome, that’s going to help you tremendously in certain situations. Maybe you have a lot of conviction—awesome, we can use that. Maybe you’re quite elegant with your words—awesome, we can use this. It doesn’t matter what it is; we need to recognize your strengths. But we must recognize that all strengths have weaknesses.
What do I mean by this? I have met many a good public speaker that is a very poor listener. See, their strength is in speaking, in being heard, and they’re so good at it they often times forget that they need to listen. And so, the weakness that being a good speaker has is they are poor listeners. We have to be more mindful of that when we’re good public speakers, because we need to learn to shut up.
Higher education is another fabulous example of this. Individuals that have high—high—levels of education will often think of themselves as right, even when they’re not. See, the false belief or the narrative that they’re telling is, I have a Ph.D., I have a master’s, I have a degree—whatever it might be— I am highly educated, and as a result I know better, even though they might not necessarily know anything about what they’re talking about, and they’ll give advice in areas that they have no business giving advice on.
Your Problem Is Not Too Complicated To Solve
I remember there is a story I heard of a medical doctor at one of the universities I went to. This doctor was having jaw pain—serious, serious jaw pain. He was a highly respected professor; he knew his stuff. He was lecturing to his students, and he kept complaining about this jaw pain. He had talked himself into believing that this was neurological—there’s nerve damage in his jaw and he’s going to have to go for major, major, major surgery. Because he was so smart, because this was his field, he believed himself to be right.
As he’s talking himself up to going for this elective surgery, a student raises their hand and says, Hey, have you thought about seeing a dentist? The man, being very confused, asks, Why would you say that? The boy says, Well, you could have a cavity.
So you know what this professor does? He goes to the dentist and he gets his teeth checked, and guess what—he had a cavity. That’s all he had. Because he was highly educated and he believed himself to be right, he was willing to go under the knife to have a serious surgery done on his jaw to fix a problem that didn’t exist.
You might think of this as an exaggeration, but it’s not. I have watched countless executives and CEOs—people in high levels of leadership—who believe themselves to be right do incredibly stupid, stupid things. Here’s another fabulous example: Kodak. Kodak was one of the first companies to invent digital cameras, and they did not want to roll them out because they didn’t want to cannibalize their film industry. And guess what—do you have a Kodak camera? I didn’t think so.
There are so many companies, so many execs, so many leaders, so many doctors, surgeons—highly educated people—that think they are so right when they couldn’t be further from the truth, and this is a huge problem. Being highly educated is a massive strength, but if we can’t keep a tap on the weakness of believing that you know best—even when you don’t—it will be detrimental to you.
Allow Your Strengths To Work With You
Another example of this is mediators. I have met some absolutely fabulous people that have a huge strength of being a mediator or a peacekeeper—this is phenomenal—except when they allow bullies and psychopaths into their mix and they can’t deal with them effectively because they’re too busy trying to smooth over the rough patches. They’re too busy trying to make everyone feel comfortable that they fail to see that, Hey, you have a bully and a psychopath in your mix; you have to get them out of there and/or at least reprimand them on some level, because by trying to make everyone feel good, you’re actually creating a toxic environment.
We have to remember all of our strengths have weaknesses, and we need to understand what those weaknesses are, because then we can start applying our strengths correctly.
I have a lot of conviction. When I say I’m going to do something, I do it. When I said I was going to start this podcast, I did it. When I said I was going to start my own business, I made it. When I said I was going to go back to school, I did do it. This is a huge strength; it has allowed me to achieve great heights of success. But it has a weakness: when you have high levels of conviction, you often don’t see that you’re making a mistake because you believe yourself to be right.
This is a problem when you feel that you’ve been wronged, or somebody has wronged you—you want to cut them out of your life for good, even though that might be the wrong decision. It took me a long time to understand that conviction can kind of blindside you to when you’re not making the right choice. Now I have to take a step back and really think about the situation and what’s going on before I can make a choice. But once I’ve made that choice, it’s full steam ahead—come hell or high water, that choice is being done. That’s a great example of recognizing a strength but that weakness within that strength.
Develop Your Strengths
So, how do I develop my strengths? There are four steps to it.
Change your thinking
You have some beliefs that are getting in your way—thoughts that you’re weak, you’re not beautiful, you’re not strong enough, you’re not smart enough, you’re too old, you’re too young. It doesn’t matter; these are beliefs that are no longer serving you and will not help you get to your dream. We need to replace them with I am strong enough. I am beautiful enough. I am smart enough. I am old enough. I can do this.
One way to do this is get a journal. Write the opposite of your false belief every single day: I am not too old; I am the perfect age to get my dreams started and make them come true. If you think of yourself as lazy, write, I am not lazy. I am strong. I am smart. I am motivated. Keep writing it. Over a couple of weeks—if not a month—you will see changes in how you think.
Identify your strengths
There are a few ways:
• Do an online strength test. These are accessible (just note some aren’t that good).
• Get yourself a coach (if you worked with me, we’d dig into what comes to you so naturally it’s as if you’re breathing).
• Talk to a good friend or loved one—they see you in action and will recognize your strengths. Just listen; don’t dissuade them.
Implement your strengths consciously
With many of my clients, we choose one strength to focus on in the next days and apply it consciously. It doesn’t matter what your strengths are if you’re not applying them. Be conscious of how you’re using them, and forgive yourself—because when you go out there and use a strength, you’re going to screw up. (I did, and that’s okay—failure and success go hand in hand.) Experiment, learn how to utilize each strength to its fullest.
Watch out for the weaknesses in your strengths
- If you’re highly educated and someone less educated offers a suggestion, ask, Do they have a point?
• If you’re a great speaker, remember to listen.
Recognize the weakness of each strength and prevent it from hindering you.
To recap:
Strengths are invisible because they come effortlessly—almost as if you’re breathing. The problem is we often don’t recognize our own strengths and believe that everybody has them. This creates a false narrative that we’re weak or broken, destroying confidence, independence, goals, and dreams.
To break this and gain success:
Believe in yourself.
Understand your strengths—and their weaknesses.
Balance strengths with weaknesses for maximum benefit.
To start highlighting your strengths:
- Change your thinking—believe you’re strong and smart.
• Identify your strengths (coach, test, or friend).
• Apply them—experiment and accept that you’ll screw up (it means you mis-applied, not that you are a screw-up).
• Watch for false beliefs and weaknesses so they don’t hinder you.
Thank you for listening. If there are other topics you want me to explore, feel free to reach out to me at am Melnyk@seedingthelead.com. If you have questions you’d love for me to answer, I’d be more than happy to respond. Otherwise, we’ll leave it at that. In the next episode we are going to be talking about Bing—I look forward to seeing you then.
Cheers! If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe, give it a like, and share it with a friend. And if you’re ready to take the next leap and improve your leadership skills, head over to www.seedingthelead.com and book your free coaching session today.
Oh, you’re still listening? Well, just for you—because you made it to the end—I’ll give you a little tip. I’m going to be doing Coaching Tuesdays on both Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. If you’re interested in small, bite-sized action steps to start accomplishing your goals, tune in on Tuesday and follow along. I’ll see you then.
Cheers!